I’m still of the school of thought that says that Julian Assange is little more then a fence of stolen property and that he has quite throughly convicted himself of receiving that stolen property with every leak that he releases. I am also of the school of thought that both Assange and Bradley Manning should be charged as accessories to murder for every single person whose death can be directly attributed to the release of the Manning documents. I’m not entirely comfortable with Rep. Peter Kings move to charge Wikileaks with terrorism, in spite of the fact that the Manning documents have undoubtedly terrorized hundreds of thousands or more people who have worked with and alongside of US forces, agencies, and other entities all over the world, I’m having a difficult time finding grounds to disagree with Rep. King at this point.

On the Korean Peninsula – Men and weapons systems are on the move all over the Pacific Ocean regions even as I type this. I am in full and complete agreement with South Korean president Lee Myung-bak when he says that the time for patience is at an end. There are no more cheeks left to turn…

“The South Korean people now unequivocally understand that prolonged endurance and tolerance will spawn nothing but more serious provocations.”

This is coming from the same South Korean president who just four months ago was talking about peaceful re-unification with the South footing the entire bill through increased taxes…

The North Koreans, as is their usual and long standing MO, threaten a rain of fire and other such horrible things if they are not allowed to continue doing the horrible things that they have been doing to themselves and two of their neighbors for over sixty years. I could be wrong, but I strongly suspect that war is not something that is in China’s current or long range plans. And I strongly suspect (and hope) that China will at some point soon tell their belligerent and bellicose ally to back down.

Update: Or China could turn its back on North Korea…

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Regarding the TSA – Hundreds of millions of dollars spent on machines that do not work as designed (the puffers) or worse are potentially dangerous (the porn machines). The porn machines themselves are a clear violation of several Constitutional amendments and all to remincesent of the pre-WW2 Maginot Line. They were obsolete before they even went into service, as the enemy has already shown with their attempts to target cargo aircraft and usage of anal suppository bombers. Worst of all, as TSA has been wasting hundreds of millions of our tax dollars on these machines (and on the six figure salary of its veracity challenged administrative leadership) it has been repeatedly shown to be incompetent at the job its intended to do. Meanwhile the TSA frontline screening officers barely make a living wage…

With an annual budget of over $8 billion dollars a year the TSA seems to be extremely reluctant to publicly show evidence of any success at actually preventing or stopping any terrorist attempts. As a taxpayer I expect to see at least some results from the money that is taken from me. Expensive boondoogles and poorly paid frontline grunts are not the results I want to see from my money.

“Stagecraft has often been an important element of FBI counter-espionage work. When the FBI wants to impress the Soviets and give an example to would be spies, it sets up a scam, captures the “legal” Soviet officer operating under diplomatic cover, and turns the publicity spotlight on the arrest. The result is that the Soviets learn a lesson and presumably rein in overly zealous intelligence officers. A secondary result is that Congress and the American people see their FBI in action. A well publicized espionage arrest is good for everybody.”

Substitute the word “terrorism” for “espionage” and “Soviets” for the current terrorist enemy and you get an idea of how modern counter-terrorism tactics are sometimes handled. You also get a whole new understanding of the recent Anna Chapman case, (but that’s another post that I’m not likely to ever do).

■RPG cages/Slat armor: Plenty of pictures of them on Strykers and other armored vehicles now, but not so starting early on in this war. The RPG dates back to WWII, so you can’t say their impact on light armor is a new issue. When RPGs became common in Vietnam, we put our 113′s in cages of one type or another. Very effective – and very forgotten. Like the next example, lives were lost, memories came for the fore, redneck engineering held the line until official production – and now we have them again. No excuse.
■Unarmored HUMVEEs/MRAP: All you needed to know about their need was learned and forgotten in Somalia. Israel and Apartheid South African experiences spanning decades also gave clues. The story by now is well known – as it was on 10 SEP 01. No excuse.
■Inadequacy of the M-16/M-4 and its varmint round, the .223/5.56mm: Tired but true argument. All discussion should have ended when the M-14 was brought out of storage wholesale mid-decade and serious talk came up towards a 6.5/6.8mm round – but the G4 guys seem to have beat the G3 guys, again, on this with a classic bureaucratic holding actin – sadly. Same institutional concept that ignored Gen. Mattis when he was MARCENT and wanted MRAPs for his Marines. The amount of our own countrymen’s blood on the hands of our accountants and non-warfighting Staff Weenies is enough to leave anyone gobsmacked. Back to the subject at hand, I recommend anyone who wants to defend M-16 series talk to MG Robert H. Scales, USA (Ret.). No excuse.
■The joy of armor. I love the Canadian example from AFG on armor, a lot. It isn’t that they didn’t learn the lessons – it is just they learned the wrong lessons. Too much peacekeeping since the end of the Korean War and the lost perspective from the end of garrison duty in Germany after the Cold War had left the Canadians within a year of getting rid of all their tracked armor. They also let the wrong people run their internal national messaging – tanks are symbols of masculine militarism, etc. When reality squatted on their national bellybutton picking, they just had a few Leopard 1s left. It didn’t’ take long for the Canadian dead from AFG to scream for tanks, as the reality of combat brought the unique skill-set of the tank to the front. Where do we find our Canadian brothers now? With a nice gaggle of Leopard A2s. They also are bringing back the CH-47. No excuse.
■Irreplaceable tracked vehicle: In the same line as the Canadian idea – we too had fallen in love with the wheeled vehicle. They have their place – but are not all things for all places. Strykers are great as long as you don’t, ahem, have to worry about IED – but if you can’t leave the road to engage the enemy or get away from a kill zone – then all you are is a death trap. We mostly knew that —- but this still makes the cut because there was a growing school that wanted to get rid of all tracks – they are still around – experience in the field says you can’t …. again.
■The gun on aircraft (USAF): Everyone knows the story from Vietnam, but as we can see with the USMC & Navy’s version of the F-35, we have not learned the importance of the gun as well as the USAF (gunpods don’t count). Infantry always enjoys a good strafing run – but recently it has also come to the attention of the COIN crowd that the aircraft cannon is a very precise and discriminating weapon. No GPS coord problems or laser designation challenges. No excessive explosions. Man in the loop accountability.
■Infantry: You never have enough infantry: Enough said. What is less sexy to a peace time green eyeshade number cruncher than a guy with a rifle in his hand? They are a pain until you have to go to war – then all of a sudden you remember that the Marines may have something there; everyone a rifleman. Talk to the Army non-infantry types who have done nothing but infantry work.

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I’ve been writing the same things for almost a decade now across dozens of blogs. I’ve been ignored. I’ve been insulted. I’ve been told I have no idea what I’m talking about. I’ve been threatened, (you know who you are). I’ve even had my comments edited for content. I don’t care about any of that, all I care about is winning this war.

I don’t pray often, but this is one I pray that the powers in command read and take heed of.